


Sleeping Beauty

by misura



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/F, Fairy Tale Elements, Post-Season/Series 01, Psychic Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 15:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21018263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Sansa finds herself at Highgarden with an excited direwolf, a loving girlfriend and a determined queen of Thorns. (magic!AU with elements of canon)





	Sleeping Beauty

As a method of being woken up, having an excited direwolf jump on your bed left something to be desired. 

_"Roses!"_ Lady said. _"Nice smells! Pretty flowers!"_

"A lot of good that's going to do anyone." Sansa sighed. She'd spent half the journey to Highgarden trying to convince Margaery to turn around, because Joffrey was going to come after her, after both of them, and he had an army. The other half of the journey here, she'd allowed herself to hope. The Tyrells were powerful. Rich. If they committed themselves to fight Joffrey, and if Robb managed to establish a line of communication somehow - _it might work. It might be enough._

_"Food?"_ Lady asked, cocking her head.

"Don't look at me, I'm just a guest here," Sansa said. "Try the kitchens."

_"Come,"_ Lady said, her teeth closing on the bed sheets. _"To the kitchens. Good eating!"_

On second thought, sending Lady to beg for scraps in the kitchens might not be the best idea. This wasn't Winterfell, where people would know about direwolves.

Sansa wondered if she would ever return there. _Robb will come and get me. He'll kill Joffrey and bring me his head, and then we'll all go home again._

_Except for Father._ It still felt unreal, to know that she would never see him again, that he would never again be bringing her a doll, as if she were a child, or ask what she needed a new dress for, when the one she'd gotten three years ago could still be mended to fit.

_"Come!"_ Lady insisted, growling and pulling. Sansa didn't bother grabbing onto the bedding, allowing Lady to pull all of it to the floor. _"Eat! See the roses!"_

Sansa sighed. She still felt worn out, and not all that hungry. If Margaery or anyone else wanted her, they'd know where to find her, given that they'd presumably been the ones to put her here. Until then, she'd just as soon stay where she was. "No. And if you keep doing things like this, you're not allowed on the bed anymore."

"You mean things like saving your life? What a tragedy that would be," Margaery said. Sansa wondered when she'd come in. "And a little bit ungrateful, don't you think?"

"I was talking to Lady," Sansa said.

Lady yipped, looking smug as she made herself comfortable on top of the blankets.

"Uh-huh," Margaery said, sounding a bit distracted as she took in - _oh._

"Do you mind?" Sansa asked, aiming for haughty but feeling like she fell a bit short.

"Nope." Margaery grinned. "Not one bit. At all. Please. Be as naked as you want. Don't go covering anything up on my account."

Lady whuffed. Sansa's hands found the one thing Lady'd left on the bed and threw it at Margaery, who chuckled and ducked while raising her hands.

"That said, you want some breakfast? Or would you rather have some 'breakfast'." Margaery waggled her eyebrows. "In bed, I mean. With me."

"Yes, I got that, thank you." Sansa rolled her eyes. "I'll have some breakfast."

Lady wagged her tail.

"I'll give you all the sausages you want if you do to her clothes what you did to her blankets," Margaery said.

"Ladies do not accept bribes," Sansa said. "Now, if you wait for me outside, I'll be with you in a moment."

Margaery sighed. "She never lets me have any fun. Does she let you have any fun? Maybe we should get together and talk about that some time."

"Margaery!"

"I'm going, I'm going."

Lady took off after a butterfly the moment Sansa stepped outside, which was just as well. She hardly needed an excitable direwolf around to make her feel even more overwhelmed.

"It's really something, huh?" Margaery said.

_Highgarden._ The name said it all, and yet Sansa hadn't been ready for anything this impressive.

Winterfell seemed ten times as bleak and cold by comparison. Strong and safe, yes, and Sansa knew where she would prefer to be when the Lannister armies came, but even so, Highgarden was beautiful.

In peacetime, Sansa could have happily declared herself at home, and willing to stay here forever, preferably with Margaery and Lady, and perhaps even with Arya, even though she suspected Arya wouldn't be able to appreciate Highgarden properly.

_War is coming._ Not quite the Stark words, but close enough. True enough.

All the pretty flowers in the world weren't going to protect her against Joffrey and his mother the Queen. They wouldn't protect Margaery, either, or her brother, or her grandmother.

Which meant she had to get away, convince Margaery to come with her, to find Robb. Robb would make everything all right again.

"Look again, dear," Lady Olenna said, holding out a cup of tea.

Sansa flushed. "I didn't mean - you saved me." By the time Robb would have been able to get to King's Landing, she would have been long dead. Joffrey would have made sure of that.

Lady Olenna sighed. "All of you - Baratheons, Starks, Lannisters - you look at our House, and at this place, and you see weakness. Softness. Pretty flowers. At most, you see the granaries, the food." She shook her head. "People call me the Queen of Thorns, and you know what, they're quite right to do so. You know why?"

Lady whined and Sansa winced, feeling something prick her finger. The smell of roses was overwhelming, the rose bushes around them crackling as they grew new branches in a matter of seconds.

"Talking to wolves - or stags, or lions, not that I've personally seen any, that's all very well," Lady Olenna went on, as if nothing had happened. "The Tyrells, on the other hand - we talk to everything that grows. It might lack the ability to talk back in any way we can understand, and frankly, I don't see why I should even want to hold a conversation with, say, an oak-tree, but when I tell it to grow, it grows. And then it grows some more, and more, until I tell it 'enough'."

Sansa lifted her finger to her mouth, tasting blood. Margaery made a sound that was half-protest.

The rose bushes rustled, surrounding the clearing, all paths overgrown. Sansa felt Lady on the outside, frustrated at first, then worried, then determined. _"No,"_ she said. _"Stay. It's all right."_

"Any army that tries to come here and tell us what to do, or who to support, well, we'll deal with them. Don't you worry your pretty little head about that." Lady Olenna sat down. "More tea, dear?"

"Thank you," Sansa said. "My lady."

Lady Olenna beamed at her. Margaery sat down, pouring her own tea and grabbing a slice of cake.

"Still, it's never a bad thing to have allies." Lady Olenna leaned back. "Having turned down Joffrey - well, if your brother could be bothered to look a bit further than the North, we might be quite interested."

"Would you like me to write to him?" Sansa remembered the last letter she had sent North. This wouldn't be like that, of course. Margaery wasn't Joffrey, and Lady Olenna was nothing like Queen Cersei.

_"Pain,"_ Lady complained.

"Well. A letter couldn't hurt, I'm sure." Lady Olenna smiled at her. "Still, what I'd really like you to do is much more simple and much more fun than writing some boring letter."

"Oh?" Sansa said. She wondered what would happen if she allowed Lady to come for her.

"My dear Lady Sansa, you would do this old woman a great pleasure by agreeing to marry my grand-daughter Margaery. She's pretty, charming and quite good in bed, or so I've been told."

Margaery choked on her cake.

"Oh, hush," Lady Olenna said. "People talk. And you've hardly been discreet. Well? I think it would serve quite nicely. These are unstable times, after all. Anything less than a marriage, and people might suddenly forget they've promised to stick with one through thick and thin."

Margaery started coughing.

Lady howled. Sansa felt her prepare to jump into the rose-bushes, never mind about the thorns, the only important thing being that Lady's human sister's friend was in distress of some sort and Lady needed to get to her now-now-now.

Margaery spat out a ring. "What."

"Ah. Well, these things happen when you take without asking first what slice is for you," Lady Olenna said. "I had it all planned out perfectly, you know. It was supposed to be romantic. Pity."

"Marry me, or this madwoman will kill us both," Margaery whispered.

Lady Olenna frowned.

"Yes," Sansa said. She picked up the ring. It still had bits of cake stuck to it. "I will marry you."

"Excellent!" Lady Olenna said. "More cake, anyone? I'm sure I only put a surprise in the one slice. Well, almost sure. One does like to plan for contingencies, after all."


End file.
